Sending out another SOS

Advocates for the homeless seek crisis shelter, plan community meeting

Each weekend, Earl Wilson and about 40 other homeless
people are left without any place to keep warm from around 7 a.m., the time
they must leave the Springfield Overflow Shelter, to 9 a.m., when Lincoln
Library opens. On an exceptionally chilly Saturday last month, they
hoped one of the homeless service agencies would extend its hours until
they could go keep warm in the library. When that didn’t happen, they
just toughed it out. Wilson says he had the option of going to a
friend’s house, but didn’t feel right leaving others who had no
place to go. Later that day, he e-mailed Barb Olson, a volunteer
with Homeless United for Change: “Once again people that we are depending on are
letting us down. . . . Red tape and bureaucracy keep us out in the cold,
heat, and other elements until it gets ready, but the need is now, not when
they get ready,” Wilson wrote. Linda Justice, who is also homeless, puts it plainly:
“Just to put people out on the street at a given time is not
fair,” she says. Olson credits local agencies that, she says, have been very generous in serving Springfield’s estimated
nearly homeless 300 individuals, but gaps nevertheless remain. “People don’t know about those
living in the dark, back corners of the street. They are the most
needy,” Olson says. “For everything that’s been going on
since last year, the homeless situation is precisely the same.” Now, advocates for Springfield’s homeless plan
to meet later in the month to launch a campaign to open a warming center
and full-time crisis shelter before the end of March when the SOS closes.
Olson envisions that homeless people will play a hand in the planning and
operation of the facility, which would include space for women, children,
and families, as well. The goal is an ambitious one, however. The Salvation
Army, where the SOS is housed this winter, has been searching for a new
home for more than three years, and it’s reasonable to expect that
another group will face similar zoning issues and resistance from
neighbors. Diane Hughes, a Springfield peace-and-justice
activist doesn’t anticipate that the proposed shelter will draw the
same obstacles as the Army, which she says has very different needs. The
purpose of the January meeting is to bring as many people together as
possible to flesh out such issues, she adds. The meeting will take place at 1 p.m. on Tuesday,
Jan. 22, at First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, and will feature a
panel presentation by homeless people. Earl Wilson, who has agreed to sit on the panel, has
already written his talking points: “If the weather gets bad right now and it snows
15 inches, then what?” he asks. “We are in need for a whole bunch of different
facilities. One for the mentally disabled homeless, and one for —
let’s say — the less mentally disabled. Because we’re all
mentally disturbed to some degree.” Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.